Call for Papers:
"Black European Studies in Transnational Perspective"
2nd International Interdisciplinary BEST Conference
July 27 - 30, 2006 Berlin, Germany

The Center for Black European Studies of the Johann Gutenberg University Mainz, in cooperation with the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut/ Free University of Berlin, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and ASU Berlin, is pleased to announce the 2nd International Conference on Black Europe, "Black European Studies in Transnational Perspective", to be held at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, July 27 - 30, 2006.

Within Anglophone Postcolonial Studies, the African Diaspora has been long recognized as an important concept. The history and culture of African populations violently transported to the "New World" via the slave trade are the subjects of vigorous scholarly debates. The history of Black (Continental) Europeans, however, still remains largely unknown. Over the last two years, the Black European Studies Project (BEST) has emerged as an international forum of exchange for scholars of this underresearched subject.

The first BEST conference, "Challenging Europe - Black European Studies in the 21st Century" was held in November 2005 in Mainz, Germany. It was conceived as a small, intense workshop, taking inventory of research on Black populations in various European nations, including Eastern Europe and Turkey, and exploring the theoretical and methodological challenges faced by the emerging interdisciplinary and transnational field of Black European Studies.

The 2nd International BEST Conference will endeavor to continue these debates in a broader context. This public, interdisciplinary encounter will facilitate cross-disciplinary discussion of previous scholarly research but will above all promote the development of new theoretical perspectives on Black Europe that might potentially inform both academic and political discourse. It will thus enable direct exchange among scholars working in the area of Black European history; it will encourage the formation of on-going scholarly networks focused on particular research questions; and it will help to make Black Europeans and their history as well as present visible beyond the bounds of academic discourse.

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
- Rewriting European History
- Black European Studies curricula
- Empirical research: subjects and objects
- Notions of Blackness and Africanness
- Race as a scientific category
- (Post)Colonial Experiences
- Black European Studies within the larger field of Black Diasporic Culture/Diaspora Studies
- Negotiating Black Consciousness
- Black Activist Movements
- Cultural Productions
- Memory and Archives
- How have Black Europeans conceived themselves historically?
- The relationship to Africa and to other parts of the African Diaspora
- The relationship to other ethnic minorities in Europe
- The interaction of categories like nation, gender, class, and religion within the category Black Europe
- The European Union and its expansion-European creation myths
- A Black European Research perspective: counter-history and/or academic discourse?
- Possibilities and limitations of the appropriation of transatlantic research methodologies

Papers may address Europe as a whole or specific European countries. All disciplines are welcome.

Please submit a one page abstract and a short CV. The deadline for proposals is 30 April 2006.
Please send your abstract to piesche@best.uni-mainz.de
You will receive a written confirmation of your participation after 30 May 2006.

BEST will be able to provide a small number of stipends to help cover travel and accommodation expenses. Please direct inquiries to info@best.uni-mainz.de